MAY 15

On this date two hundred years ago, the first privately owned and operated mental hospital opened in the United States.  It had the lavish name "The Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason."  The hospital was started by and run by the Quakers - a religious group known as The Friends.

Amazingly, this hospital is still in operation.  Located in Philadelphia, it is now called Friends Hospital.  Its campus is on the National Historic Register.

I chose this item to recall because I think psychiatric care is one of the great failures of the medical profession.  Certainly there is more we can do for those unable to cope with the world.  Our research dollars might be more beneficial if spread more evenly between body and mind.  Mental anguish is a terrible way to suffer.

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